ghetto) ("pacification") or ("special pacification") ("having-been-migrated") ("cleansing") ("directed" or worked through in a manner in accordance with the ) The Posen speeches made by Heinrich Himmler in October 1943 are the first known documents in which a high-ranking member of the Nazi government spoke explicitly about the perpetration of the Holocaust during the war. Himmler mentions the or 'evacuation of the Jews', which he uses synonymously with their extermination. At one point in the speech, Himmler says: "elimination of the Jews, extermination, we're doing it", briefly pausing in the middle of "elimination" () before going on to say "extermination" (). His hesitation in the middle of saying "elimination" can be considered as a quick mental check to see whether or not it would have been acceptable to use such words in front of his given audience; however, as the speech was given to the seniority of the SS in private, such language would have been acceptable to use. This has been compared to another incident of self-verification in the opposite way, where Josef Goebbels, in his Total War speech on February 18, 1943, begins to say ('extermination of Jewry') but switches to saying , bearing in mind that he is speaking very publicly. His resulting phrasing is , which can be likened to "exterm... elimination" in English. Usage The term first appeared on September 20, 1939 in a decree by the Gestapo and chief SS- Reinhard Heydrich to all state police departments: However, the usage is directed against Germans rather than Jews (it relates to "the principles of internal state security in the war"). Nevertheless, the law allowed for the killing of any person the regime wished. A memo dated six days later from a meeting at the defines with "execution" following it in brackets. A report from the Eastern Front dated October 25, 1941, reads that "due to the grave danger of epidemic, the complete liquidation of Jews from the ghetto in Vitebsk was begun on October 8, 1941. The number of Jews to whom special treatment is to be applied is around 3,000." An excerpt of a decree dated February 20, 1942, from the RSHA and written by Himmler regarding the treatment of "foreign civilian workers" advises that in particularly difficult cases, application should be made to the RSHA for special treatment, adding that "special treatment takes place by hanging." In a letter to the RSHA, Heinz Trühe